U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday that countries must start phasing out oil, coal and gas - not just emissions - and demanded that fossil fuel companies"cease and desist" measures that aim to hobble progress on the issue.
The United Nations climate change body said the Bonn talks closed on Thursday with progress on the issues of financing measures to mitigate climate change; the question of liability for the loss and damage it has caused; and funding for measures to adapt to its effects. But it did not specify what had been decided.
The landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement set a 1.5C increase in the global surface temperature as a limit for averting the most catastrophic effects of global warming in the industrial era - a threshold already close to being crossed. "From what I have seen and heard, there are bridges that can be built to realise the common ground we know exists," UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said late on Thursday.